A number of internet long-distance telephone companies (ITC) have been formed. A caller who uses these companies places a standard long distance telephone call. The call is routed by the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to the internet telephone company's point of presence (POP). The POP formats the call for transport over the internet to a second POP in the destination local access transport area (LATA). The call is then routed over the PSTN to the callee's telephone. In the process the caller identification (Caller ID) information is lost. Even when the internet long distance company places the Caller ID information into the call at the terminating POP, the central office (CO)/service switching point (SSP) rejects the Caller ID information. The CO/SSP checks the Caller ID to determine if it has been tampered with, corrupted or altered. The CO/SSP will reject the Caller ID information since the call appears to originate from the ITC POP and not the originating number.
Thus there exists a need for a method of providing call identification for calls placed over the internet.